A boy, affected by what
activists say is nerve gas, is treated at a hospital in the Duma
neighbourhood of Damascus August 21, 2013.REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian activists accused President
Bashar al-Assad's forces of launching a nerve gas attack
that killed at least 213 [and
as many as 755] people on Wednesday, in what would, if
confirmed, be by far the worst reported use of poison gas in the
two-year-old civil war.

Reuters was not able to verify the accounts independently and
they were denied by Syrian state television, which said they were
disseminated deliberately to distract a team of United Nations chemical weapons experts which arrived
three days ago.

The U.N. team is inSyria investigating allegations that both rebels and
army forces used poison gasin the past, one of the main
disputes in international
diplomacy over Syria.

Activists said rockets with
chemical agents hit the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar before dawn.

"Many of the casualties are women and children. They arrived with
their pupil dilated, cold limbs and foam in their mouths. The doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve
gas victims," the nurse said.

Extensive amateur video and photographs purporting to show
victims appeared on the Internet. A video purportedly shot
in the Kafr Batna neighborhood
showed a room filled with morethan 90 bodies, many of them
children and a few women and elderly men. Most of the bodies
appeared ashen or pale but with no visible injuries. About a
dozen were wrapped in blankets.

Other footage showed doctors treating people in makeshift clinics. One video showed the
bodies of a dozen people lying on the floor of a clinic, with no
visible wounds. The narrator in
the video said they were all members of a single family.
In a corridor outside lay another
five bodies.

A photograph taken by activistsin Douma showed the bodies of at
least 16 children and three adults, one wearing combat fatigues,
laid at the floor of a room in a
medical facility where bodies were collected.

Syrian state television quoted a source as saying there was "no
truth whatsoever" to the reports.

Syria is one of just a handful of countries
that are not parties to the international treaty that bans
chemical weapons, and Western nations believe it has caches of
undeclared mustard gas, sarin and
VX nerve agents.

Assad's officials have said they would never use poison
gas - if they had it - against
Syrians. The United States and European
allies believe Assad's forces used small amounts of sarin
gasin attacks in
the past, which Washington called a "red line" that justified
international military aid for the rebels.

Assad's government has responded in the past with accusations that it was the
rebels that used chemical weapons, which the rebels deny. Western
countries say they do not believe
the rebels have access to poison gas. Assad's main global ally Moscow says accusations on both sides must be
investigated.

"The attack took place at around
3:00 a.m. (0000 GMT / 8:00 p.m. Tuesday EDT). Most of those
killed were in their homes," Omar said.

SURPRISING TIMING

The timing and location of the reported chemical weapons use -
just three days after the team of U.N. chemical experts checked
in to a Damascus
hotel a few km (miles) to the east at the start of their mission
- was surprising.

"Nonetheless, the Ghouta region (where the attacks were reported)
is well known for its opposition leanings. Jabhat al-Nusra has had a long-time presence there and
the region has borne the brunt of sustained military pressure for
months now," he said, referring to a hardline Sunni Islamist rebel group allied to al Qaeda.

"While it is clearly impossible to confirm the chemical weapons
claim, it is clear from videos uploaded by reliable accounts that
a large number of people have died."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said
dozens of people were killed,
including children, in fierce
bombardment. It said Mouadamiya, southwest of
the capital, came under the heaviest attack since the start of the two-year
conflict.

The Observatory called on the U.N. experts and international
organizations to visit the affected areas to ensure aid could be
delivered and to "launch an investigation to determine who was
responsible for the bombardment and hold them to account".